


Being

by WolfOfHearts



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (sort of?), Gen, POV Second Person, the player is a person in this, trying to redeem that asshole flower, trying to work against the common headcanon of Murder Chara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5117765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfHearts/pseuds/WolfOfHearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the final fight with Frisk, after the monsters leave the Underground for the surface, Flowey is still there.</p>
<p>And he would have stayed there, and things would have been fine for all of them, like they were supposed to be...if not for the meddling of a superior being and one human's determination to SAVE. </p>
<p>(aka houseplant flowey AU with a kind of weird twist. and Chara. title subject to change.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shift

It's night on the surface.

What time? You don't know. The moon doesn't rise on this side of the mountain, and you can't see any stars from all the way down here. Not like you could decipher them anyway- that's an old human trick.

(Chara knew it, you think. Or at least they seemed to. They taught you the constellations.)

You adjust on the cold earth, peering up at through the flowers above you at the break in the dark that is the gaping hole into the Underground. You're practically laying down, on your side (you guess you could call it your side), a few petals curling like hair under your face. Even though you don't need sleep, and cold is simply an inconvenience, you are exhausted. And freezing. (You don't have the strength to drag yourself all the way to Hotland.) "

"But Asriel," you say out loud, and your voice trembles as red hot loathing sparks in you, "you don't have anything better to do." You laugh, and it's ugly- a grating sound on the verge of some emotional breakdown. Which is ironic, considering all you can feel now is hate and fury. You shift a little. The flowers above you, all sunflowers like yourself, shiver at your movement, and for a second, you can almost pretend they're alive too.

God, what you wouldn't give for some idiot to come tumbling down here again. Then maybe you'd have someone to play with. Heck, you don't even care about that anymore- someone to talk to would be nice. Maybe it'd help kill the numb in you. (You've never felt this way before. Never numb. Empty, sure, but numb was new. And it was terrible.)

Then again, it probably wouldn't work. It didn't work during those first resets -("we will always love you Asriel" "...")- so why should you get your hopes up? You scowl into the dark. Stupid sappy you. No, no. You shake your head a little.

It's Frisk's fault you're like this now. If they'd just left you alone, hated you, if they had just killed you-

A small choked noise. You swallow hard and fight the burning in your eyes. You are not going to cry. You're a big kid, you're a scary emotionless monster, and big scary emotional monsters do not cry. Dumb fuzzy 9-year old you might, but not you. Not Flowey the flo-

Goddamn it all you're crying anyway.

"Pathetic," you whimper to yourself as you wipe away your own tears with your leaves. "Pa. The. Tic....you can't even..." More liquid fire in your eyes. "You can't even be a flower right..." A sniffle.

(Chara's voice from another timeline. "Useless". It feels like a knife to the face. You shudder. Bad analogy.)

But you know they were right. Somehow. You twist so you're on your "back" and cover your eyes with your leaves. You almost call them hands. But they aren't. They're just leaves on your stem- just green fragile growths to catch the sun. (God you want to rip them to pieces. At least you know you'd feel that.)

You sigh. Without the distraction, without the game, you're free to self loathe as much as you want. Which is pretty much constantly. God you wish you could go back and LOAD to where you were yourself- no, where you were Asriel- and feel again. There'd been so much love in those SOULs, so much determination- compassion, too. You want to feel that innate something beating in your being again. And you kind of want to hug Frisk again. They'd been warm. A shiver. So warm.

(You can't LOAD and SAVE now, despite your determnation. You reach toward the expansive space in reality where the power used to be, and find nothing but cold existence. It infuriates you to no end.)

But then.

You probe that part of reality again, sitting up as you do. Something gives, and you feel the world shift ever so slightly. Frisk's power, which rests atop reality like icing, is pressed down gently but completely- not disabling it or shattering it, just weakening it. You frown at the sky. Something is here, something more powerful than Frisk? Only you were able to erase their SAVE, override it, unless...

You swing your being around the perimeter of the timeline, feeling with tendrils of awareness for that single point of hate. (No, not yourself. You don't have a SOUL; you couldn't find yourself if you wanted.) Nothing. You breathe deeply as you come back to the flower bed. No SOULs out there.

No Chara.

Your attention returns to the pressing, watching presence over the world. It doesn't feel like Chara, anyway. Doesn't feel like Frisk either. It's detached- you can simply feel its eyes, and a neutral curiosity. You've felt this thing before, you realize. At the end, when you came back to being a flower. It'd been sitting like it was now, and it sat as you begged it not to reset. You guess your pleading worked, because the world hasn't collapsed and shattered back to the start yet.

Then why is it back?

"Uh, hey!" you say to it, because what else are you supposed to do?

No answer. You expect that.

"You came back. Heh. Don't worry, I'm not going to give you another earful about resetting." A nervous pause. "Although you really shouldn't do that. But, anyway...what ARE you doing back here?" The devious grin comes onto your face. "Do you want to play with me? Because, gee, that'd be awfully nice of you. And awfully stupid."

The being shifts. No.

The grin falls away. You briefly consider getting mad, bluffing it, but you think it knows you're just a talking flower now. So you sigh. "That's too bad," you say. "We could have had a lot of fun. Well, I could have. I'm not sure how much fun dying over and dying is." (Oh but you do know. You hope it can't hear thoughts too.) "But seriously," you go on, "what're you doing here?" You chew on your lip a little as you add, "You're not going to reset, are you?"

Shift. No.

"Well that makes things a lot less awkward then!"

...

"Gosh, you really are a bad talker, aren't you?"

...

"You're not that fun, you know that?"

The being shifts. Yes.

"Oh, good. Maybe it'll do you some good then. Sure is nice that your pal Flowey here could help you get to that revelation, huh?"

Shift. Yes.

"...you're really weird." You think it's going to answer with its shifts again, but instead the world ripples. You tense. It doesn't feel like a reset, or a SAVE, or a LOAD. It doesn't really feel like much of anything at all; if you hadn't been paying attention, you think you'd have missed it.

"Hey, uh...this is kind of silly to ask, ha, but that was you, right?"

Shift. Yes.

"Ha, I thought so." The mirth in your voice lessen. "But seriously. What did you do."

Silence.

There's a feeling though, that brushes against reality and flickers uncomfortable in the void where a SOUL should be. It's a feeling of reconstruction, and- you narrow your eyes in thought, trying to remember the name. Satisfaction? You think it might be satisfaction. Weird. You shove the little sparks of feeling out to join the flames licking reality, squirming as they fade. That feels so weird...

"Well, whatever you did, I can feel it. And I don't mean psychically. Well, yes I can feel it like that too, but..." You do the plant equivalent of a shrug. "I'm going to assume you understand." You're quiet for a second. "You know, me feeling things isn't usually a good thing. People just seem to end up dead when that happens."

Silence. "Yeah, I know. I can't actually hurt you right now. But I will one day. Keep that thought in mind, ok?"

The being rises then, and its presence lifts from the world. You feel a SAVE of Frisk's LOAD- the being must have caught them in the middle of something and broken their reality. You jab at the space where your powers would be- still empty. Oh well. You settle back down into the flowerbed.

Sleep sounds good right now. There's only so much magic you can do before you tire of it, only so many one sided conversations you can have with imaginary audiences before that gets boring, too. You don't think you could ever tire of being in unconsciousness.

"Good night," you say, the words a gentle plume of smoke in the cold dark.

(But, of course, nobody answers. it still stings.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Chara and the second presence. TW: Vague mentions and allusion to abuse, suicidal thoughts, self harm, and violent impulses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After ten thousand years, I bring you...Chapter Two. *pops party popper* Chapter Three will post after I get Five and Four done, which translate to "this story will update whenever I get to it; I have no schedule and only a vague plot plan and everything is Hell"

Something is moving in the dark space near the SAVE and LOAD. Something else jerks from their doze in their strange existence between life and death, file and quit, and watches.

It oozes around the space, expands, expands, until it encompasses the world on a level on it can. It looks aloofly on, eyeing the human that scales Mt. Ebott’s slope, eyeing the skeleton that sells hotdogs on the corner, eyeing the lizard that drinks a coffee with her fish girlfriend.

Eyeing the shocked, surprised ghostly form of Chara Dreemurr.

Chara looks, but not at it, whatever it is; they realize rather quickly that’s impossible, and instead looks toward where the universal mark of SAVING glimmers in its space, a non corporeal representation of that power that’s been pulled from them. The SAVE star glimmers, winks red, winks black.The thing that hangs over the world presses down almost experimentally, and the world stops.

Chara swallows. They’ve felt something like this over reality before, but it was farther away, less interested. Less...emotive, they guess. It never approached them, never showed any mind to them, or anyone besides Frisk. It always just sat there, watching, waiting, sometimes SAVING and LOADING when Frisk could not. They float up toward the dark void that's replaced the sky, a void not unlike the one they own.

“Hello,” they say to it finally. 

The void shakes violently; a greeting in return.

“Are you Frisk’s partner?” They don’t think it is, but perhaps that being is just angry. They glance toward the shape of Mt. Ebott, and That void where a SOUL should hover aches with the want to be filled, to have a satisfying end. They shove the feeling away as the void answers in its own way: no.

“Then you’re a demon, just like me,” they say, but the words lack punch. They’ve not killed, not here, not in any timeline. The idea intrigues them, consumes them sometimes and always, always, makes their fingers itch, itch, itch for a blade, but after they woke bound by spectral thread to Frisk, they’ve done nothing but watch and learn and listen and envy. 

They spoke, a few times, but they aren’t sure if Frisk heard them. They aren't sure if they want Frisk to hear them.

The void rumbles again. It wants something, but it can't get it, and it’s frustrated. Chara shrugs. “You’re asking the wrong person," they say. “I’m just a ghost.” They do a little cartwheel in midair to emphasize their point, and gasp as the force slams them down to the ground. 

Another rumble, and the SAVE point is in front of them, some kind of text flickering across its now white interior. The void pushes it at them, and an incessant desire nags its way into their brain from it: accept, accept, accept, it hisses in its rumbling and shaking, and Chara draws back.

“Accept what?” they say. Their voice shakes. 

An image flashes before their eyes- Frisk’s body, but their eyes are red and open, a blade in hand, a smile on their face. The void backdrops them, and for a moment, a singular moment, chara hears the being’s voice- it’s mechanical and monotone, like a text to speech output: “Accept what you deserve.”

Chara stares at the image, and keeps staring even after it winks out of their view. It knows. This thing knows about their impulses, their itch, that stupid revengeful drive that dogs their steps, that they’ve fought so long by using their own skin as a battlefield (at least, when they had a bod, that is). 

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” they answer it, and a memory of why they left for the mountain in the first place surges up for a split second from the back of their mind-

-pacing in their room, quiet as they can make their feet, flinching at every muffled hit they can hear through the thin apartment wall, praying , praying, slicing, slicing-

-they’re sitting in class, hiding in their hoodie, avoiding the guidance counselor's eyes as she addresses the class, walks too quickly out when the bell rings, tries to ignore how their arms sting and their heart is heavy-

-screaming, someone is screaming, and they’re crying, and they’re running, trying to run but they aren't fast enough, _they are never fast enough_ -

-wishing on a birthday cake for death, death to the people ath hurt them, people that watched, for themselves, mostly for themselves, gd how the wish they could only hope for death for themselves but this kind of pain is meant to be shared by the end of a knife-

-the last night, the worst night, the blood and the bruises and yelling and the knife, the door slamming, he running running in the dark, tripping over rocks and vines, falling, falling, falling-

they look down. There's a little black SOUL glimmering at their hands; it pulsates with their breath. They look from it to the void sky and back. If they refuse, the being might not come again, and they'll be stuck here with their own thoughts and misery again. If they accept, they;ll live. That's what it’s getting at, right? If they live, they can do all those things they didn’t before, all those things they were too scared to do, all those things...

Their heart clenches. “Fine,” they say, and grasp the black SOUL in a hard fist. The world crackles in their vision, the void in their chest fills, fills, and then-

**[*Determination.]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is confused: the presences are players; this new one is a different person than the one that "nudged Frisk along their way in the Underground".
> 
> Chapters alternate Flowey (second POV), Chara (third POV).

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the fic that's been nagging me for the past week! :3 I'm really excited to be writing this. First fic in a while and I'm really glad it's Undertale related. 
> 
> Updates are sporadic and tbh happen when I feel like. But they will happen. This fic won't leave me alone until I write it lmao. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this first bit, and that you'll stay around for the rest. ^u^ (also please leave title suggestions maybe? because I really want a better title for this story ahaha...)


End file.
